


Sweetheart

by Mauser_Frau



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Action, Angst, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Drama, Early Children of the Vault, Gen, Gore, I know this isn't a fandom with mission fics, Implied Child Abuse, Implied Drug Use, Mission Fic, Troy Calypso POV, building on canon, but somebody had to write one
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:48:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27791770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mauser_Frau/pseuds/Mauser_Frau
Summary: For the sake of his sister and the well-being of his followers, newly-minted God King Troy Calypso takes on a job alone.  But is a fundamentally tender-hearted guy who was raised in near-total isolation really cut out for organized crime? Or will his contraband get the better of him?Occurs during the Troyreen portion ofGrimeverse, but there's no actual Troyreen unless you consider hand-holding super lewd.  ReferencesSatellitea bit since it takes place a few months after, but I wouldn't say spoilers per se.
Kudos: 5
Collections: Grimeverse





	Sweetheart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kingcharon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingcharon/gifts).



“The last time you went by yourself, you ate everybody!”

Tyreen grabs him by the front of his shirt. She jerks a finger at him and sucks in a breath to shout. Instead, she sighs. “OK. You got a point, I guess.” Next thing, she crumples against him. 

Troy’s not sure what to make of this besides the fact she’s relented for once. He wraps his arm around her and pats the back of her neck. “And you’re tired. When was the last time you slept?”

Several non-committal gurgles follow.

“Why don’t… why don’t you lie down and I’ll go?”

“You’ll wreck the car and starve in a ditch.” Talk about a vote of no confidence.

But at least she’s thought of him. At least she’s almost listening. Troy presses her again, gently though. “I’ll set my ECHO to play that song about the ghost in the taillights really loud if you call and I don’t answer. I’m taking the old shipping route, so roll the windows down and drive it too if you can’t find me.”

Tyreen bristles, but there’s no fight left in her. There actually isn’t. Nodding, she pulls off and lurches towards the bed. Half off of one foot, she groans and turns back to him, wrapping her marked hand around his. 

He tastes mildew and coffee grit. Skags. Just a hint of meat from the dust up that led them to this room tonight. She held pretty much life and now he does too, no hint of closing off left in his body. 

Sparks dance around his fingers for a while after she’s collapsed onto the sheets. Tyreen scrunches on her right side with the covers wadded up under her chin— her down-for-the-count pose.

He leaves her like that, brushing the door closed behind him without a sound. 

Troy configures his ECHO while standing in the dark of the hallway, then heads out of the inn, down to the gravely pan where the rest of the caravan has camped for the evening. 

The silent Psycho woman in the three-eyed mask who’s been following Tyreen in particular drifts to his side, her shoulders tilting in question. Molly is crying again. She’s somebody’s daughter. Troy doesn’t know whose or if it matters. The last of the Riptide Boxers stand when they see him.

But that’s what him and his sister get for accidentally rescuing a mostly died out clan. Some of the poor bastards are still bloody from the fight and they’ve taken up the other three rooms at the inn. Another breathed her last earlier in the day. They buried her somewhere out along the road into this smudge of a town, under a cairn and her favorite shotgun. 

Troy stands in the firelight, willing himself to look serious. He does not let himself open with “Hey”. These are their people. He should present as though he requires respect so that they can offer him that when they have so little else. “I’m going on an errand.” He says with at least some authority. “I need my coat and arms. The pickup’s been fueled, I assume?”

Shuffling and nodding and of course follow. The only person who doesn’t dash off to a job is the silent Psycho.

He considers. Tyreen seems to accept her readily enough. He should make her useful. “The God Queen’s asleep in room 102. Why don’t you…” Keep an eye on her door.

She’s already off. She runs awfully fast on her short legs. By the time the others return with Troy’s gear, she’s disappeared.

Troy dons a heavy black jacket, then stoops beside Molly while she’s sniffling at the knees of several adults who may or may not belong to her. “My sister’s not here,” he says. “Can you help me get this on, sweetheart?”

Damn. He really shouldn’t have said sweetheart. It’s force of habit leftover from listening to the others in the caravan say that to her.

Molly’s face brightens. She scrubs her hands on her overalls and, with reverence, fastens the chains that keep the jacket from slipping off his empty shoulder. When she’s done, he kisses her knuckles, snot and all. Somebody whispers about it. He can’t hear what. Anyway, Molly hides between the trucks as the others return with his weapons.

His old Vladoff goes in his holster, more ammo in his pack and a knife at his opposite hip. Everyone waits for him to speak before they dare move after that. He tells them what should be plain: “I’ll be back before dawn. Keep to yourselves and try to rest.”

He climbs into the driver’s seat of his pickup. He sees so many faces in the rearview mirror. 

And he’s off. The road shudders and coughs up dust under the tires as he passes the edge of town. The navigation function on his ECHO sputters briefly, dropping his signal. There’s some reflective compound in the soil here that cuts out satellite connections at the right angle and concentration. Probably worth a few pretty pennies if it could be weaponized. 

He watches it blow off through the side windows as he hits a clean stretch of asphalt, all ink and glitter in the moonlight. The road up ahead is marked with turned over chemical barrels, long empty. No settlement lights disturb the hills and no succs grow in the low, cool places between dunes. Dahl or Atlas did a number on this place. He isn’t sure which from the reports. 

His people left bodies in this corroded strand of desert. 

Troy drums his pinky on the steering wheel, feeling the clank of his splint ring. It was his mother’s. He doesn’t know which finger she wore it on, but his smallest is the only one of his it fits. Feeling that sound though, the engine hum sends a secondary shudder over his bones. He leans against the wheel to hold it steady and gropes for the audio settings on his ECHO. 

The first station he hits is some sandbilly news talking about the end of the Riptide Boxers and wondering where the riptide part came from when there’s no ocean for a thousand miles. Besides, “On a planet with half of a dozen gangs as call themselves the Bone Crushers you gotta wonder what kinda organization lets themselves get taken out by any Bone Crusher, I tell you what.”

Troy’s throat burns. He slams his thumb on the call button and his foot on the accelerator. The car picks up speed and bass as the far line chirps and doesn’t answer and chirps and doesn’t answer and then there’s a click and what has he done.

“Hey, caller. This is Skitty and the Mooch on Chem Valley 102.5. Now just what do you find so interesting about a bunch of dead idiots?”

(“Besides the fact they’re dead. We covered that!” the Mooch laughs in the background.)

Troy turns down his ECHO so there’s no feedback. He takes a deep breath. The voice that comes out of him after seems to rise from the road, the twists of neon paint on the towers still blinking beneath the stars. “Skittttty, my man. Hey, love your show, but you can’t go around telling half-stories on my watch. You know that, right?”

“Oh? And Who’m I talkin’ to here?” chuckles Skitty. 

“You don’t remember? I’m hurt.” He’s never spoken to this man before in his life, but the forced connection, fake or not, should be enough to throw him off his guard. “It’s me, God King Troy, First Brother of the Children of the Vault.”

“The what in the who now? Son, that’s a lot of words.”

“Says the professional talker. Listen, you need to get your facts straight. Or to, you know, to be facts.”

(“Ooh, dis,” says the Mooch.)

“The Riptide Boxers weren’t from around here. They got chased off the Trash Coast by, I don’t know, that massive chemical spill a few years back. Which by the way, thanks for that Dahl, since you’re listening and I know you are.”

“Well, look at the little ecologist we got here. This isn’t about a couple dead crabs. This is about people with, like, no brains.”

“Are you sure? ‘Cause the mining runoff around here made a salt marsh more or less and if you were going to resettle people from an ocean, I mean, worth a shot.”

“Were. Didn’t work out so great for ‘em, now did it? They’re dead.”

A smile forms on Troy’s lips. He does his best to let it slither through what he says next. “Well, if that’s what the Bone Crushers said. Oh, wait, wait, hold on. Has anybody heard from Mister Bone Crusher since he did his little victory dance?”

“Well, nobody’s heard from the Riptide Boxers, that’s for sure.” Skitty snorts.

(“And that was a lot of chipped beef and whores!” adds the Mooch.)

“Mooch? Insult my followers again and I’ll give them directions to that filthy lean-to you call a loveshack.” Not that he has any idea where the Mooch lives, or anything about the person. He can extrapolate from the nature of the show they play on though. 

There comes a pause, heavy with insect sound, on the far end. So they’re probably in the runoff salt swamp themselves, those two. And they are listening to him. “Boy, what are you playing at?” Skitty says, slowly now.

“Do you research next time,” Troy cuts in before at ends. “Yeah, the Riptide Boxers are gone. History. Not a thing anymore. But that’s because they’re ours now. Yeah, brought them all into our family. Usually, we get two, three people in a clan who hear the call. And they stay put! But the Riptide Boxers? They all got it on the first try. They’re Children of the Vault now.”

“Oh, so you picked up the scraps. Good going.”

“What kind of annihilation squad leaves scraps? Also, seriously. Have you heard from the Bone Crushers?”

Through their silence, his smile spreads. 

He leans into the wheel, coming closer to the ECHO, the road and the night. He speaks sharp through his chest. “See, that’s what I figured. You want to talk about stupid and dead… Oh, in fact. Do you want a picture of Our God Queen fingering Mr. Bone Crusher’s braincase? While it’s open?”

(“Fuck yes we do!” whines the Mooch, to some muffled punching sounds. “C’mon man, I gotta see this.”)

“And that’s for you,” Troy hisses, having slugged a few more buttons to transmit the photo. “Now, so the audience knows: The Children of the Vault will be escorting our wonderful Brothers and Sisters back to the coastline over the next few days. We’ll be headed due east from Chem Valley and, coincidentally, we have chipped beef if you want some. It’s not all made out of Bone Crushers.” 

“Dude, that is gross!” wails Skitty. Nothing funny or pretend about it.

“A god’s gotta do what a god’s gotta do to make a point with people like you on the air.” He himself cuts into a sneering laugh. “So hey, stop in, say hi, hear some good words. But don’t mess with our family. We don’t appreciate that.”

Troy hangs up. The whistling quiet hits his ears like a plunge into deep water. As his eyes close, he shifts one foot to the break and he presses down slowly.

It takes a long time for the pickup to roll to a stop. He hadn’t been cognisant of how fast he was going, or where he clicked to on the GPS. More shining dust clouds around the cab. He hears it falling in the wheel wells.

Once that stops, he flings himself out onto the pavement. It doesn’t matter how thick and chappy the air. Troy gasps, holding his chest with his shaking hand. The edges of his vision darken and he leans against the bed cover, his breath condensing on the plastic windows as he chokes, as he coughs, as he comes down laughing.

He really shouldn’t have done that. Who the hell knows what other people are out listening in the night? Maybe the contact at the place he’s allegedly going (fair chance there’s nobody there) or somebody else with their own cult or…

He laughs even harder.

…somebody who needed to hear that.

It’s crazy, that thought. But it gets his heart to stop thundering. As if someone would need him. He’s an asshole in a graffitied pickup trying to keep his sister alive. He knows that when she said she wanted bandits, she meant she wanted food. She’s hungry and she can’t help it. 

He could have stopped himself from telling Skitty and the Mooch he was a god, he thinks with the determination of a child telling themself that they won’t cry over a brush-burned knee.

But, how else would he get anything he wants? People die for gods and countries and corporations. The last two were never options in his case. 

Troy puts his back to the cab instead. The stars stare down at him. 

He’s made a mess of himself, so he scuffs the dust out of his hair and washes the nervous sweat off of his face. The rest of the bottle of water he sucks down as if he hasn’t had anything else to drink all day. Then, he climbs back into the driver’s seat and hits start.

After the call and without Tyreen, the night feels violently empty. He catches it in his bones and the place where he reaches out to withering without her. As the hills seethe past again, he remembers the silence along the old highway to the Droughts, back when she was hurt and feverish. He remembers flying blind into the dark with no destination betweens forwards and help us. How weak her hand felt when he held it.

She’s resting now and not with him, but he knows. He has to know. 

He can do this for them both and on his own. 

Troy puts on a playlist he borrowed from her, all late night radio ghosts and taillights and dead gangster stuff. The towers and the turbines and the pretend saxophone wails only make things more lonely, but at least he can keep his eyes on the road this way.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday, KingCharon! And, erm, sorry.


End file.
